Bosnia (Mostar, Jajce and Sarajevo)

We didn't get a real stamp on the passport as we crossed into Bosnia. This was a little concerning as in Central America they tended to hand out massive fines to anyone who didn't have their passport in order. After a little more travelling around Eastern Europe, I'd realise they really don't give a shit here except for maybe the old Soviet republics. Apparently we were double charged. I have no idea what that was about. The hazards of writing these things a long time after the actual events. Anyway. We arrived in Mostar and first impressions from the window were that this was a bit of a shithole. I didn't say anything to Cannelle, but it turns out she was thinking exactly the same thing.

There was a gaggle of locals waiting at the bus stop and we were singled out by a small old woman who offered us a room for cheap right next to the bus station. Having been burnt by not accepting the proposition in Croatia, we decided that this time we should accept. There was another guy charging double to a family near us and maybe that's what I meant by double charged. Our old lady didn't undercut him and we had a place within easy walking distance for the bus the next day. We decided to stay for just the one night, because it didn't look that great. Mostar ended up being really pretty. We had taken an afternoon kip because we were dead from the night before. When we headed into the town, it was obvious that the facade from the bus window was not representative of the picturesque centre of the town. It was small, but it was very cosy. We noticed the price difference immediately. We would finally be able to stay on budget and enjoy ourselves a little. The famous bridge is excellent, arching over the river like a curving back, gently tumbling over the river. Its also very serene. You feel strangely relaxed, when normally next to a famour landmark you feel harangued from all sides by the hustle and bustle of the tourists and vendors. This was in the height of summer as well. The cobbled streets leading to and from the bridge were also nice with the small vendors. Not much pushing here and the locals seemed a lot more accommodating than the Croats before. We went on a walk around the suburbs to see some of the bombed out buildings from the war. The contrast between the new and old was marked. Cannelle thought one place I told her was bombed out was in fact just a new housing estate. It's got a nice blend of ghost town and vibrant pulsating little community. It's one of those places you could just chill out in for ages. Shame we only had the one night as we'd already booked tickets to Jajce. I believe this diary entry sums up the finances. 'Can eat again.' Yes we could. No more bread and chicken sausage. Well not much anyway. We could eat in restaurants and still be on budget. We could get giant portions of meat with some pita bread thingy. It was so cheap. Lots of weddings in town, though not of Kiev dimensions. No bridge divers sadly. It didn't mater. The bridge was better than the divers would have been. We hung out in some cool bars, Cannelle picked up an awesome crepe for almost nothing and then we went home because we were knackered. Nice place. It was also monumental here, because it was where Cannelle's hair straighteners blew up and gave up the ghost. Since this day she has not used them anymore. Going from the woman who could never do without them, to finally having her wonderful natural hair all the time.

We left the key on the table in the morning and headed for Jajce. We got there and there appeared to be no budget accommodation in town. Bus times were bad as well. We opted for a two night stay and a hike down to Pliva lakes. Or maybe we decided on two nights after we saw Pliva. I can't remember. It was a long walk. Very long. All the way down the main highway. Wow it was pretty. We had come for the town, but we would stay for the lakes. Cannelle didn't want to see the waterfalls for the town, but that was ruined by the Croatian disease of sticking up a giant billboard with the location plasted all over it. It was a mini Plitvice. Only you could swim in this one. The campsite was 5 euros each for the night. I love Bosnia. Or maybe it was 5 euros each for 2 nights. It was cheap anyway. We went down to the lake and got a huge burger thing that we couldn't even finish. Mountains of meat. We walked around the lake, past the second upper lake with mini mill things. Not sure what their purpose is but it looked pretty. We went for a swim. Well I did as it was ice cold. Shit like Russia. Still it was nice and invigorating. It's true that cold water fires up the blood. We grabbed some supplies and headed back to the tent. It was still a shitty tent, but it was hanging in there. Not sure if it was going to make the whole trip. It was a nice relaxing couple of days off here. No rush. Just chilling. I told Cannelle that South East Asia would be a more similar pace to now.

In the morning we went for another walk around the lakes. We got super cheap ice cream. 20p or something like that. We went to visit the catacombs and the castle. Both crappy but cheap. Everyone was super helpful. The Bosnians just seemed really nice. Cannelle has a veggie stew for lunch and I had another Cevapi. The food down here in the Balkans was really good. The more you spend here, the more you realise why Yugoslavia was such a popular destination for the Germans before the war. We even got a great hot chocolate that I spilt everywhere from a little house in front of some impossibly beautiful mini cascades. I have no idea why more people don't visit here. Even Lonely Planet glosses over it, but I think they always slide past National Parks. A place in Thailand that looks jaw droppingly beautiful only got a small mention in the Thailand section, yet some bullshit beach resort will get three pages. Oh well. Shows the focus of most tourists. Ah mini pooh. Its Cannelle's new name. Never stuck though. We bought the Sarajevo tickets for the next day, electing to avoid the weird pyramid thing they have unearthed. Then we saved the best until last. The double drop waterfall underneath the city. It looked picture perfect on the photos, but when we got to the vantage point it was clear that one of the waterfalls had dried up and they had built some sort of weird bridge. Bugger. It ruined it but it was still pretty and Pliva had been worth it as well. The waiters in the evening thought we were Bosnian. We went back to the lake and chilled out reading and watching a crazy dog who was running around for no reason at the barbecue. It was a really pleasant two days here and Bosnia was fast joining Slovenia as a favourite country.

In the morning we set off for Sarajevo and had just left the campsite when a car pulled up alongside us for the third time this holiday. A crazy local farmer offered us a lift. He couldn't speak a word of English but showed us photos of his family and him with a scythe. He was a bit mental, talked at us in Bosnian, was happy with our countries and gave me a thumbs up because he thought Cannelle was beautiful. He drove us into town (kind of like a crazy Bob from Twin Peaks) and saved us a hike. So we could chill out waiting for the bus. A woman moved for us on the bus so we could sit together. The Bosnians were so nice to us. We arrived in Sarajevo and had a double problem. No buses to Montenegro. Only one night bus from a bus station in the middle of nowhere that was expensive and there was also limited accommodation due to the film festival. This was badly planned. After our own 'no room at the inn' wanderings around Sarajevo we eventually found somewhere not too expensive with our own room. We figured we had saved enough elsewhere in Bosnia to take a hit here. It seemed a nice place, despite the number of Bosnian women dressed like putas. In the evening we even sat in the square spotting who had the shittest dress and who was the biggest puta we could see. While it was nice, I fail to see how this city is ever like a mini Istanbul. Everyone says it. I can only assume that A) They have never been to Istanbul, B) They have never been to Sarajevo or C) They are really stupid. I don't see any similarities. We went off to a museum that was supposed to be free, only to be greeted with the statement 'this is a museum, you must pay.' Fuck off then. We walked up to the hill cemetary. I took us the long way round, which Cannelle loved. She got hit on by some guys when we made the top, because she was slightly ahead of me and they didn't realise I was with her. We sat and chilled up there with a good view over the city. One of the kids followed us away from the fort and I was worried we were about to be attacked, until he stopped, removed a rock and took out a bottle of alcohol that he'd obviously stashed there sometime before. We went to see the film Hanna in the evening and then adopted a dog. He followed us around and barked at all the other dogs to keep them away from us. It was a little heartless when we had to ditch him, but we ended up slinking into a Chinese restaurant to buy a few things for the evening. We were able to chill in the evening.

DISASTER. That's what I wrote and what this day was. One of the worst of the trip. The hotel would only hold our bags for an hour or so despite telling us it was ok the day before. Miscommunication. We did however get free crepes in a local restaurant when the waiter found out I was a Spurs fan. Turns out he loves Spurs, even though we have Croatian players (they don't like Croats here) and he was so excited to have a Spurs fan in his restaurant that it made his day and we ate partially for free. Nice people these Bosnians. We saw the famous bridge where World War I started and then took a bus out to get tickets for Montenegro. The bus would arrive in Herceg Novi at 4am. Ah perfect. We tried to walk to the Tunnel Museum, got lost twice, realised it was miles away and gave up. Now we were stuck. Hours to go and nowhere to go. We killed time in a restaurant with super expensive ice creams. Pointless waste of a day, aside from the crepes. Anyway the sunset was pretty and we were off to Montenegro. We would miss Bosnia. Great country.

Croatia (Zagreb, Plitvice, Zadar, Split, Trogir, Hvar, Korcula and Dubrovnik)

Oooohhh slidy head rests. Reminds me of my first inter railing. Anyway we were in Croatia and excited. It was one of the three countries I expected to be a highlight of the trip. First impression. There was not a massive price difference between Slovenia and Croatia. This could prove problematic as we had a higher budget of 45 euros a day for Slovenia and Italy, but Croatia would have to be attacked with the trip's basic budget of 30 euros a day. We found a hostel (admittedly expensive) with free internet, so we took the opportunity to upload our first round of photos from the holiday. The last bus to Plitvice was at 4pm so we would only have a half day or so in the capital. We headed out for the evening. Zagreb has some funky bars in the downtown and is probably one of the best looking cities I have been to in terms of the women. It didn't please Cannelle much, but she was the first one to mention it after we left the railway station. We got some good food from an organic bar and chilled out under the lights of the city with a hot chocolate. We were officially on gypo travel rations, but it was a cool city. It has a nice vibe and I could live there, even if its a small city. The hostel even had a double bed with the bunk beds so we took that one. Free tea and apparently some fashionistas. I am not sure if that relates to the hostel or the people of Zagreb.





We got up and stored our bags before heading out into the city. Lots of cool graffitti lines the walls on the way to the railway station of Zagreb. Some Belgians in the hostel. They loved Eastern Europe and I got the impression it was for the women. We walked around the city. Grabbed a lunch by the market where it was good value for money. Cool city. Found a sign for a 'Naive' museum which I guessed was a typo, but then again maybe not as we saw some others later on the trip. We skipped the museums and headed to the botanical gardens, where we spooned some melon and danced on a bridge. There is a nice shaded wooden walkway up on the hill. There are not many top grade tourist attractions in Zagreb, but I do really like the city. Cool place to hang around for a few days and I am sure its even better if you are single. apparently we had a moron bus driver. I don't know why, but he dropped us at the campsite. Its very expensive there to camp. More than Slovenia. Personally with hindsight, I think it would be better to stay in one of the homestays lining the road, but we didn't cotton on to this until Bosnia, so it cost us in Croatia. Now we were apparently around 9km from the park and so we got into a debate about bus v walk. I think the bus was 10 euros return maybe. Now I can't remember. In figured we could walk it. Cannelle wasn't interested. In the end and after much debating, we agreed to the bus one way and walk back the other. It was going to be difficult to stay on budget in Croatia. We were eating from supermarkets and still killing the budget. Shitty.





In the morning we took the bus one way to Plitvice. They even put the fucking photo of the park on the side of the bus. Yeah good idea. Dickheads. Its a bus that runs from the autocamping near the park to the park. Who the fuck is going to be in the autocamping? Why are they there? I don't know. Maybe they just like stopping in the middle of fucking nowhere for no reason. I am sure if you are there, you are there for Plitvice. So why the advertising. There is no need. Yet some people might like to be surprised when they go there. Damn Croatia. The tourism is killing it for the tourists. We got to share the bus with 500 French scouts and an Italian family. Well anyway.... How was Plitvice? Fucking awesome. The highlight of the trip and possibly the highlight of Europe. That's how good it is. From the moment you enter and catch the huge waterfall plunging off the cliffs and down into water so blue and clear, Cannelle said it felt like being somewhere tropical. It did. It's difficult to describe and needless to say we broke our rule of only a few photos a day. They have little wooden boarded trails all over the park. You go under waterfalls, past waterfalls, over waterfalls, around pools of water, through the middle of them and everywhere there is water. Beautiful water. Hypnotic water. Its like being in a natural water theme park. Its too cool. These Karst limestone formations are immense and as usual UNESCO didn't disappoint. We had a wonderful day, picnicking, riding boats, hiking and marevlling at the beauty. It keeps evolving as well. So everytime you go there is something new. I would have attacked the long trail round the back of the park as well, but I preferred to spend the time with Cannelle. We saw a snake swimming, lizards and beautiful butterflies. If you only go to one park in Europe, this is your park. So far Croatia was living up to what we expected and then some. After the park we walked back and it turned out to be only 6km, so walk it is my advice. There is a nice swimming pool halfway back along the road as well, but we didn't have our swimming costumes. We went over budget with a nice outdoor barbecued dinner and then watched an Italian couple smash all their crockery outside the toilets before we turfed in for the night.





In the morning we took the cartel bus down to Zadar. We passed the national park en route and there were some useless English people on the way. Lonely Planet said the campsite was 4oom from the centre of the town. I think they missed a 0 somewhere in there as it was a bitching nearly 2 hour walk with full rucksack. We also kind of went the long way round. Its disheartening when you don't know how long you have to walk for. Eventually we got to the campsite and had the privilege of paying another fortune to stay there. How wonderfully uncheap these places were. Never mind. We had one night to enjoy the city, but due to transport fuck ups we would have to go early to Split in the morning. Really early. Like 5am early. No trains. They stopped them. Too cheap I guess. I love the bus rules in Croatia. The price can be literally doubled depending on what time of day you leave. Zadar doesn't have much to do. Its got a nice pretty downtown, but not much else. That could be the review for the remainder of Croatia. My God their coastal towns all look the same. We were bummed by random taxes for all sorts of shit at the campsite. There were more skanky English in the towns. Should have been a warning sign. Cheese bureks full of too much cheese and we were off to the sea organ. Sounded cool in the book. In reality it was ok. We went swimming past it and they have put some organ pipes in the water so when you swim past it, it plays music. We couldn't see the light show as we had to get back and sleep. We had a picnic with no spoon after finding nothing of interest at the cinema. Cinema = shit town with nothing to do. Then we headed to a bar called 'The Garden'. What a cool little bar. Shame we couldn't stay and enjoy it more. Some skanky English came in at one point but before that it was cool. Raised up with a view over the water and boats, beanbags scattered on the top deck to lie down and enjoy the cocktails or in my case a hot chocolate. Super chilled out and vibey. Would have liked to spend more time there. It was top class. Realxing in a cool bar, lying down with my future wife watching the waves roll by. We had sunset on a beach back at the campsite, I had my first French lesson and I had to insist on paying the stupid campsite out of hours as our bus left in the morning before the opened. Damn inconveniences. Onwards to Split.





Chicken sausages. We were being stalked by chicken sausages. Huge billboards. As if we didn't see them enough on our cheap picnics lol. Now trucks were coming with the stuff as well. I don't have any idea if Poli really is the best chicken sausage, but I haven't had any others and it was ok for me. We had our first rude bitch experience in Zadar bus station when Cannelle was bitched at by some woman. We had hostel problems again in Split. Everything was expensive. So we went over budget for 2 nights and opted against going to Krka National Park for budget reasons. If we had known the other countries were so much cheaper we could have gone, but at this point we were worried about the viability of the trip. The hostel was shit and their cooker was broken. There was an old one in our room and I reconnected it to the mains so we could cook spaghetti that night. Confused the owner, but that doesn't take much. It has a really high rating on hostelworld as it was run by Aussies. Now its run by locals and they are effectively asset stripping the hostel. We hunted down a McDonalds for cheap, filling food and found that the majority of locals were unfriendly here. Very different from Slovenia. Cannelle ended up ordering a pork burger that she hated and was pissed because she finally splashed out and got something she didn't like. We hadn't combined our money yet. I think we did that in Jajce and beforehand we were operating on two budgets. We went to Dicoletians Palace. It was nice, but a bit of a disappointment. We went up the tower with the metal stairs designed to scare anyone with vertigo. We went for an early evening walk up the hill to find the zoo. It wasn't a real zoo. Then we saw Super 8 at the cinema. It was a good film. We touched the lucky big toe of the statue in the centre of town and to be fair we had a lot of good luck after we touched that toe. We are exceptionally lucky anyway :-) It started that evening when we had the room to ourselves and decided to have sex in the hostel. Just after we finished and Argentinean couple came in. Like literally after we finished. Very lucky indeed.





In the morning we got breakfast on the waterfront at a French bakery while all our clothes were in the laundry. I think it was the only successful laundry we did on the trip. We took a bus to Trogir as there was nothing to do in Split and it looks exactly the same. They all look exactly the same. All these UNESCO Croatian towns. The same only a little different. Each slightly prettier than the last one. Just go to Dubrovnik and maybe Hvar and skip the others. We didn't need to pay for the bus to Trogir as noone checks, so we didn't bother for the return journey. The argentines had started cooking now as well, so the hostel owners were pissed. Trogir is an overpriced, small, walled port town. Nothing much else to say. We went down to the waterfront for an evening concert, which was nice and enabled Cannelle and I to piss around with sweets :-) We couldn't buy the ferry tickets so we would have to wait until the morning.

We bought the tickets in the morning and killed time while Cannelle taught me French on the hostel veranda. The boat trip was fairly straightforward. I like boat travel. Its my second favourite after train travel and is relaxing and chilled, even on a catamaran. We pulled into another island, en route for Hvar and scared the crap out of a number of people eating in a waterside restaurant. Nothing like having your lovely sea view ruined by a catamaran pulling up alongside and spraying you with water, while simultaneously threatening to plough through your table. We arrived in Hvar. It was a very pretty little town, but boy was it small. We figured we'd lock up the bags, but as they wanted 5 euros for 3 hours, we only put in one and I carried the other around with me. It was hot work. We climbed the hill to the castle and chilled out with a picnic. Its a really beautiful view from up there. It may even be the prettiest of the Croation UNESCO towns. It was however super touristy and very expensive, so I was glad we weren't spending the night there. We wandered around the town, before settling for some super expensive internet while we waited for the boat to Korcula. The boat arrived, after many tourist's day trip boats had swarmed the harbour like ants at a picnic. People had to climb from one boat onto another in a long chain to the harbour. Our boat eventually turned up and we joined the queue for the middle of the boat. After letting lots of people on, he told us his part was full because we had big bags. Arsehole. We just kept meeting the creme de la creme of Croatian tossers on our trip. I can imagine the huge influx of retarded tourists we met can be draining over time, but still...They could at least be civil. We arrived at Korcula with a different crowd of tourist. Gone were the dickhead English and the sun, sand and sex crowd and in their place came the Germans and the Croatians. This looked like an island for the locals. We liked it immediately. It was the first place we had arrived in since Plitvice, to which we took an instant liking. We hiked round the town as the lights were dimming and found a very cheap campsite, where the old proprietor insisted on taking us to our pitch by bicycle. Very old school. It was an old fashioned campsite, but it was tucked away nicely. We went back into town and stopped to watch some water polo. Was free, so why not. We then wandered around the town at night and had dinner in a local place. I think all of the Croatians were surprised at our gyponess in the face of their extortionate prices, but this was the first time when someone actually was surprised by our relationship. An Englishman and a French girl. 'Aren't you supposed to hate each other?' Hmmm, well yes, but its been a good 100 years now. Anyway even during the 1000 years, I figured it was more a love/hate relationship, but came down more on the love side. Besides I think it was a cunning ploy to stop weird children. The children of French/English relations are always somewhat strange. Look at Francois or Canada. Anyway they didn't charge us for all of the food and we felt it would be too rude to correct them and scarpered. We went for a walk around the castle walls and saw some black witches (three identically dressed young girls on the pull) and listened to some cool music for free on the castle walls. We came back, flanked by a French school group and the tent was still buggered apparently. I remember the tent's shitness being discovered here and as I have not mentioned it before, I am surprised it gets a mention now. I think its where we realised one of the tent poles was snapped. It still worked with a bit of binding. Slovenia must have knackered it. What a shitty waste of money. Anyway we persevered with El Crappo because he was still hanging on in there. How long would he last?

In the morning we walked into town to buy tickets for Dubrovnik. The bus station was on a half hour break. Of course. As you do. We got some breakfast and ate it while hiking across the island. We decided to hike to the West end of the island. We had a mini fight under the heat of the day, but it was scorching and we really didn't have enough water. There were lots of Slovenians here, judging by the cars. We passed through fields and vineyards till we found a small beach where Cannelle took a swim. i looked after our stuff. Then we carried on hiking back East along the North coast on one of the cycle tracks. No shade. We passed a god awful rubbish dump full of the most foul odors known to man. They dump all the shit away from the tourist resorts and clearly for a reason. They also seem to have gouged all of the greenery off the hills on the North side, so I imagine they are developing. Not so fun to see the pace of development literally destroying the reason why you go there in the first place. We got lost again and ended up going down a dead end. Then we got lost again. Cannelle was getting pissed at me by this point. Finally we stumbled across the road and headed East again. W e got picked up by some local guys, who drove us down to a private little cove. Beautiful place we had to ourselves, except for the local guys. A few local houses, a private beach and a nice little cove. We had lunch before going for a swim. How could you ruin such a picturesque little cove. Try piloting a fuck off yaucht right into the Bay. Ah the rich and their ability to ruin anything in the pursuit of it. Still they enjoyed their little swim with a couple of locals and a couple of hobos. By this point the heat was kicking in and the water was running low. We hiked round the East until we eventually hit a town and then turned South and West back to the town. A long days hiking in the heat. We hung out on the wall, drinking milk and listening to music again. There was a retarded woman at the burger bar for dinner, who couldn't understand our order or prepare it without taking about half an hour. The French kids were there again and we slipped into El Crappo to get up early for the bus to Dubrovnik.

We took the bus early in the morning and stopped midway for no reason. Then out of a dusty sideroad came a guy on a motorcycle. He approached us and handed a package to the driver. Then he went off again. The dude looked like Bon Jovi and it was a bit random. We arrived and were mobbed by women offering us rooms to stay in. Take them. We didn't as Mostar would be the first time we took this opportunity. It is the most economical and best way to stay anywhere in the Balkans. I was just stupid and we didn't know. We lugged our stuff all the way over to the campsite, where they told us it would be 50 euros to stay there. What the fuck. A campsite. For 50 Euros. Let me think about it lol. While we were weighing it up a guard came to move us. I asked him for one second and he started carrying my bag. I shouted at him to put it the fuck down as its not his stuff. We had a little stand off, while we checked options outside and the guard kept trying to kick us off the property. What an arsehole and once again the wonderful Croatian hospitality. Fuck this city. The arseholes we had met so far didn't deserve our money. We decided to lock up our bags in the bus station for the night and stay up all night. Good idea at the time. We walked down to the famous, old, walled city of Dubrovnik. I thought it was pretty and the prettiest of the idetikit towns we had trawled through. Cannelle wasn't bothered though and was thoroughly bored with Croatia. It had not been what we expected and tomorrow we would head to Bosnia. I went for a walk around the walls, which Cannelle didn't fancy. It was nice up there with some good views. The way the check points are set up you could probably go up there for free for some parts of it. It was scorching, so I was pouring water on my head a few times up there. The walk takes a good hour to circle the whole city. The inside of the walls was covered in stone slabs for walking and was pleasant if touristy. The city was going to charge everyone to enter it until the Dubrovnik residents protested. Seems like the Croatians will do anything to squeeze some more money from the tourists. We went to a cool little artsy cafe with weird colouring like something out of Alice in Wonderland. We got lost in the allweyways trying to find the outdoor cinema, but we ended up in a jewellery shop overlooking it, which judging by the owners response was a common occurence. The only clubs were super expensive, so we would have to stay up in the city. We went to a cool Thai veggie place where everyone thought we were Spanish. The jazz place would only sell cold drinks so we couldn't stay as they were extorntionate. We found a place doing coffees and stayed there for a while. Then we went to the square and watched some Aussies breakdancing and some fire jugglers. It was a nice, romantic outdoor evening of culture. We were killing time and we didn't have much Kuna left. We didn't want to draw more as tomorrow we would be in Mostar. I was a little wary in the streets at night after having my nose broken in Chile and that annoyed me. Also I had Cannelle to look after. Its one thing getting myself broken, but quite another if something happened to her. We ended up sitting on a bench with a sea view, overlooking a club where we could take the piss out of the people there. Two other hobos seemed to join us for a bit. I let Cannelle sleep while I kept watch. We wandered back into the city around 3am and could walk around the deserted streets. It was very pretty and surreal at night. We walked all the way back to the bus station, past some prostitute who was being picked up by some drunk guy and we slept for two hours in front of the bus station with all the other people who must also have found Dubrovnik too expensive. It was a mix of hobos, back packers and hammered party people. Nice company. We paid for the bags when the place opened up, I walked and got us some breakfast. Little croissants filled with sausage that would become staples and we were finally leaving Croatia.

The bus left town, briefly passed through Bosnia's only coastal resort (shithole) and back into Croatia, where we crossed the border without a real stamp. Finally we were done with Croatia and we were happy to be out of there. Lets see how Bosnia is.

Slovenia (Bovec, Bled, Bohinj, Ljubljana, Skocjan and Piran)

We walked down the main street into Slovenian Gorizia and it was my first new country of the trip. We got to the bus station and I had to try and make sure Cannelle avoided the poster of Plitvice on the side of the bus station. Fucking Croatians. They plaster photos of their parks everywhere. You feel like you have visited all of them and I know its designed to make people visit them, but they even put them next to the park entrances. As if you had visited the park and didn't know it was there and may just pop in. STOP RUINING THE ANTICIPATION. Most people like to see the places when they eventually get there, not splattered all over the side of a bus. Anyway I mention it here, because this was the first time we saw it. We only had to wait half an hour for a bus (which was lucky as there is only one a day so make sure you make it there for 2pm or so. Well there is a second at 5am so lets just say one a day). We took the bus to Bovec. What a green country. I mean really green. Apparently 70% of Slovenia is covered by forest and it looks more. It reminds me of Switzerland, in miniature, without the tourists. Driving through the little mountain towns was very pleasant and we arrived in Bovec in the late afternoon. Its tiny and we found the campsite easy enough. The facilities are really good and its not too expensive to camp in Slovenia. We had a short walk around the town and bought dinner from a supermarket (10 euros for two. It wasn't that cheap). We booked in for the rafting the next day and went for a walk down to the river. The scenery with the surrounding mountains is truly spectacular and it was probably the most impressive geographically featured country on our trip. We even bought ourself some Poli chicken sausage. We were yet to find out just how famous this sausage is, as billboards of the product stalked us through Eastern Europe (well at least the former Yugoslavia). We had a small picnic and it started to get cold. I had forgotten that it gets cold in the mountains (even in the summer). While we were waiting there we saw an innovative way to walk a dog. The car was driving along with the dog lead out the window as the dog jogged alongside. Why stress getting exercise for yourself, while you can just let the dog do all the work. Another dog also wolfed down the last of my Poli. He seemed happier than the dog running with the car. It was super windy at night and 'El Crappo' (our tent's name) probably got slightly broken this first night, but we didn't realise it at this point. One night, early stress fractures to the frame and the carrefour tent was seen to be wanting. Speaking of being wanting, my sleeping bag was awful. No pillow part and very cold. Oh well it was going to be a long summer. At least I only froze a few times during the trip.



In the morning we headed to meet our guide, take a van ride across town to pick up the raft and we were off to our start destination. It was less aggressive than the Rio Pacuare, but Cannelle wanted to be broken in gently to rafting. We got wetsuits (unnecessary in the warm Costa Rican waters). This beautiful, transparent, greeny blue, ethereal river was the polar opposite. A glacial mountain stream, it was refreshing (freezing fucking cold) when you jumped in and Cannelle declined the opportunity to acclimatise. We saw the famed marble trout and the obligatory faces in the rocks as we crusied down river. Towards the end there were some grade 4 rapids, but it was mainly gentle and a lot of fun. Cannelle loved her first experience of rafting and maybe we will do some more in Asia. We definitely will in Latin America. After the trip we decided to hike up the river for the afternoon, past the parts that you can't raft through. You can canoe some of them if you are super talented, but most people carried their canoes past. This path winds through beautiful gorges, over the crystalline waters and threads through the mountains on the way to a waterfall. We followed the path for a few hours, enjoying the scenery. Cannelle was dying a bit, as she hadn't acclimatised yet and she was terrified of the bears (her constant fear would slowly erode my lack of fear until I started to be afraid of bears as well). Its a complete contrast to my usual devil may care attitude. We passed over rope bridges and headed up towards the waterfall. We were getting further and further off the path without finding a real waterfall, though we found some cascades. Maybe that's all they had, but we'll never know. Cannelle was really scared by now and we had to turn back. I lost the path and we ended up scrambling over random scenery. Welcome to one of my typical hikes. On the way back we were trying to find out where the bus went from. We found a random fisherman. He sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger. (ooohh aaahhh the buuus leaavveess from over deeerrrrrr) he indicated to us with his Arnie accent. Made me laugh. Imagine Arnie fishing in a small place and giving bus directions. We ran to get there and we missed the bus by a few minutes. I figured we may as well start walking back along the road (13km), but then the storm came and the rain slowly began to descend. Shit. We were walking back, but a wet night in a tent is never fun. Luckily for us, just before Cannelle killed me for making her walk, a car stopped at the side of the road. We weren't hitchhiking but they had stopped to give us a lift. We clambered into the car of a Slovenian family. The mother was talking excitedly with her 10 year old kid in Slovenian. He turned to ask and asked us why we weren't hitchhiking (In perfect English except the hitchhiking where he just jerked his thumb in the universal symbol). Its the first time I've been criticised by a mum for NOT hitchhiking. We had 9km of quadlingual conversation (Slovenian between the family, English with the kid, Spanish with the mum who spoke back to us in Italian). These Slovenians really are gifted linguists and by 10 the kid could speak better English than most school leave age Spaniards and French. It was a nice cross cultural opportunity and they dropped us in town where we found expensive internet and a pizza for dinner. Oh yeah we saw a deer in the forest which was really nice and I'd forgotten to mention it. That night was really crappy. Cold, wet and I forgot to do up my sleeping bag. Oh well. Two nights of camping in the mountains and two rough nights. Didn't bode well for Slovakia and Poland later on in the trip, when it would be further north.



We got up very early the next morning and took a bus over the Vrsic Pass which was meant to be spectacular. The winding, ever climbing mountain road was a little uneasy for Cannelle and I, but the view from the top is really good, though it was cold with the wind. We looked through the photos so far to edit and delete the ones we wouldn't keep. Maybe it would have been nice to stay a night up there if we had had the time (and not in a tent). After the top we were the only people in the bus for the descent down to Bled. I'd seen some photos of Bled and after Bovec I already knew this country would be special. It didn't disappoint. What a beautiful lake. Picture perfect, like it was designed for postcards. I was feeling feint by now, but we hadn't eaten for a while. I still get it a little now in Paris. I am suspecting Anemia or Diabetes as they run in my family. Cannelle suspects I am just a hypochondriac. We walked around the lake to the campsite and went to take a photo. Shit. Where was the camera? Shit. We'd left it on the bus when we were looking through the photos and had then fallen asleep. The camera was off to Ljubljana before us and we had to decide whether to buy a new one or not. I worked out from the bus timetables that the same bus came back in the afternoon. As the main office was shut we figured we'd give it a crack and see if we were lucky. I told Cannelle what happened to me with the 100 Peso note and that I had promised God if I found it I would spend it on food to reward the good luck. Unexpected money is not real money and you should enjoy it as it was never in your original plans. So Cannelle agreed that if it came back she would pay for dinner that night. In the meantime we couldn't just hang around so we went off to Vintner Gorge. It was a fair walk (an hour or so) and we got our first Bureks (wonderful pastries filled with meat). Heaven sent if you are feeling hungry. The gorge itself is well worth the entrance. Its just a shame we didn't have a camera. You walk over wooden walkways above the pools, waterfalls and cascades and its a very pretty half an hour stroll. You can get out at the back and walk over a bridge to get a better view of the final waterfall as well. We came back fully satisfied and waited for the bus. It arrived at last (around 5pm) and the same smiley man was driving the bus. Cannelle went on and the camera was there. On the exact same seat we had left it. They are not a criminally minded people, the Slovenes. Lucky us. Lucky me for the dinner. I have written 'Cannelle is Canadian' and I have no idea why. There were some French 'yo-yo' people on the lake and some English middle class twits as well. We ended up walking round the lake 2.5 times in total with the trekking back and forth. We went up to the castle on one side, but decided not to pay to get in. The views of the lake are beautiful. There is also a famous church on the island in the middle of the lake, which you can row over to and ring a bell. We didn't but its one of the things I wish we had done. We had a superb dinner of sausages, meat and swiss chard (which is the first time I've had it outside Switzerland or my Nan's house). The meat is fantastic down here. Succulent, tasty and well sized. We saw a German old couple we had seen earlier on the train in Italy at Vintner and then again the same old woman came cycling past us at the lake. Weird people and strange to see them again. On the way back we saw a Slovenian man sprinting out of a restaurant to return someones forgotten telephone just before they drove away. Friendly and helpful people. The '5' star campsite had only lukewarn showers but at least it was less cold here.





In the morning we got up and took a train to Bohinj. Its a glacial lake further up in the mountains. People say its more beautiful than Bled. Its less developed and more natural, which is appealing, but I think bled is just a shade more beautiful despite the tourists. You can take a direct bus, but being tight I opted for the train and a 6km hike. It was full of Aussies (I guess they are tracing their Yugoslav routes as many of them come from around here). The walk was nice along a winding country road and we bought ourselves another picnic. It was a pretty alpine lake with a nice church, but our picnic was dusturbed by attacking wasps and some weird people doing an amateur photo shoot. Cannelle was totally broken by this point and I had to give her a long leg massage to ease her muscles for walking. It was the usual problem if your muscles are rusty and she always insisted she had bad circulation. I insisted that the more you exercise the fitter you become, the better your circulation is and the easier any kind of hiking is. We fed some ducks and had a little hike around the lake followed by melon. On the way back I opted to walk through the cycle lanes and it was very pretty. The bike trail got narrower and narrower until I was certain we had taken the wrong turning. Then again maybe not. There seemed to be a route across the fields, but Cannelle was traumatised by the cows. She thought they would come to get us, probably born out of the horse experiences in Andorra. It turned out the free roaming cows we had seen were actually behind a fence and it was a pretty uneventful hike back to the town. We got to the train station for the return train, only to be informed that today was a Sunday and subsequently the mid day train didn't exist. Shit. We did see them loading the cars for the shuttle car transport through the mountains, which is one of the only ways across to Bovec in the winter when the passes are all blocked off. We ended up deciding to take the bus, which pissed Cannelle off as we could have taken that from the lake and it would have spared her a calf breaking trek through the mountains. Still, it was a pretty walk. On the way back I made us get off the bus early as I got confused with the directions and that pleased Cannelle even more. She was really aching at this point. At least over the course of the holiday she got fitter and can now comfortably match my walking pace and stamina. I was trying to take things easier at the beginning as I didn't want her to get disillusioned with travelling as being too much hard work and I avoided any of my back breaking, minimal cost saving treks. We went online again and Cannelle's ex Josef was once again stalking our trip. I think it may have been the last time we heard from him, but I am sure I'll be reminded as I re-read my blog. Good job I write these things to chronicle everything that happened to me. Will be a fun read when I'm older and also for our children. Like children's adventure books, where your parents are the stars :-) The lake seemed surrounded by little insect people, kind of like those little pixies in a very clever art installation I once saw at the Royal Academy of Art. Maybe they were onto something. We took some food and chocolate down to the lake and hung out there for the evening while the temperature dropped. There was something moving out in the frigid waters. It looked like something moving slowly. Was it a boat. Was it a duck. No, it was a mental Russian tourist swimming to the island and back in the lake. Brave woman. It sure looked cold when she got out of the water. Oh well. Better her than me.

We packed up the tent in the morning. Four days of camping and we still hadn't noticed it was a little buggered yet. 'El Crappo' was holding up well. We got a pizza burek and an apple burek for breakfast and hopped on a bus to Ljubljana. Our camera could already tell us what was worth seeing, having taken his little side trip. He didn't take any photos while he was there. I guess everyone likes to take a break from their job when travelling. Even the support equipment. In a concession to Cannelle (and a good idea of hers) we took a bus to Lana's house. You had to buy an equivalent of an oyster pass for 2 euros but they told me we could get a refund when we left. Lana was our second and final couchsurfer of the trip. The Balkans are difficult to find hosts in and after the Balkans we realised we didn't need to couchsurf. She lived in a nice small apartment with her boyfriend and three cats. The cats were big with strong personalities and fun to have around. She had just taken exams for art school and her boyfriend was taking his finals for his computing course at uni, so everyone was ready to celebrate the end of an intense few weeks. We headed out in the day on our own to see the city. Its a pretty little town. We winded through the cobbled streets, saw padlocks on the bridge (a disappointment as we thought Odessa was the only place to have it and in the end we didn't put a padlock anywhere. Shame). We went up to the castle and up the watchtower to see the city. Its still reasonably green, but the video was excruciatingly boring. Skip it. Save yourself. Both of us almost fell asleep with the crappy 3D. I don't understand the obsession with 3D. Why would I want to pay extra to have stupid plastic looking shit unrealistically float towards me across the screen. Its a total waste of time. Afterwards we headed to Park Tivoili and on the way passed a cool looking outdoor bar. They have a full range of unique bars in the city and it looks like a cool place to hang out for some time. The art gallery was shut, but there was a photography exhibition running through the park. We went to a cafe overlooking a little pond and chilled out there. We also had a monster, delicious burger opposite the railway station. Highly recommended for any backpackers. We came back to the flat and offered to help Lana cook. She did a really cool banana cake, but forgot the sugar so it was naturally sweet (Oh yeah we had an awesome tiramisu when we stayed in the Lakes), I somehow managed to churn cream into butter so that didn't help. Well at least I know how butter is made now. Its made from incompetent pastry chefs like me whisking too much. After the dinner, which was a lovely caribbean curry, we headed off to a bar. As luck would have it, it was the bar we had walked by that morning and it was as cool as we had suspected. It was playing a cool jazz jam session and we joined some of Lana's friends including some friends of the musicians. It was a nice outdoor garden and we bought them some drinks for their hospitality in letting us stay with them. It was a really cool, if too short time and we'd like them to come to our wedding. One of the other girls was off to a horror film festival in the mountains dressed as vampires. Sounded cool, but we were on a tight schedule for this trip. Looking forward to South East Asia when we can cruise along again and see how we feel. Even better after Oz as we will travel only with money concerns and time is no object for us. They were big fans of English comedy series so I introduced them to Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, which they loved and we got to bed around 1am.

We were up early again to take the train towards the UNESCO Skocjan Caves. This country was top class so far. The train was leaving at 7.15am and the tourist office opened at 7am. It was a brisk run to the platform. Cannelle told me to forget about getting the 2 euros back, but I am a super gypo. I anxiously waited outside the office. 7.01 am still not open. Bastards. 7.05 the man arrived with his bicycle. I accosted him and got him to refund our 2 or 4 euros, before running to the platform where Cannelle had kept the train waiting. Sometimes gambles are worth taking. I still hadn't ever missed a transport on holiday, except for the bus in Cuenca when I was horribly drunk beyond all recognition. Ah trains. They are so much better than buses and I missed them a lot on South America. It would be nice to have a train trip down to the caves, except there was a problem with the lines and halfway we would have to change to a bus. Fuck sake. It started to rain really hard. Oh well at least it was for the day we were in the caves. The bus connected with another bus and we were eventually at the park. There were tours of the cave in Italian, German and English. French and Spanish are kind of useless in former Yugoslavia. Well Spanish works with the Italian. We were debating whether to do two caves or one and Cannelle didn't fancy doing both, but then they closed one due to the rain and we had no choice anyway. The caves are very impressive. I can't remember exactly, but I think Carlsblad Caverns in Texas were better, but these were really good. The highlight was the huge cavern in the middle with an underground river cutting it in two, a bridge spanning the chasm and remnants of the vertigo inducing old route the miners and earliest tourists used to have to take to pass through. There was a stupid French family who took a push chair through the caves. Not only is that difficult, but it becomes impossible on the way out where you have to go through a turnstyle. No photography was premitted, so we have no visual record. Its a shame as Slovenia looks awesome on our photos and if you factor in that two of the best places don't even have photos you can imagine how impressive this country is. The elevator was broken so we had to take the walkway back. I would recommend it anyway as it winds through some lovely scenery and past a waterfall. We almost snuck onto the second walk by accident (or design) until some random woman stopped me. We had to wait an hour at the top for the free bus back to the town, but eventually it came and we had to wait for the even more expensive bus to Piran on the coast. We were heading there and then going to cross into Istria in Croatia. Well at least we thought we were. There are no well timed buses over the border and we would lose a whole day if we waited. Having arrived in the town and set up the tent a nice walk down the coast we took a look around the town. Its pretty, but nothing special. Not worth going out of your way for. The old port is nice and we had pizza and strudel for dinner. Cannelle went for a swim, but we had a problem of protecting valuables which would be with us for most of the trip. Maybe we would be trapped here. We had a disagreement over what we should do and why we even came here, but in the end the most time saving option was to go back to Ljubljana and then take a train to Zagreb. It meant we missed Istria but we can always do it next time we go back to former Yugoslavia as we surely will.

We grabbed a strudel in the morning waiting for the bus and I drowned my phone in the sea. That'll teach him. For some reason I flipped it out of my pocket, went all butter fingers and it slipped through them into the sea, where it bounced off some rocks before settling near the bottom. By careful inspection it could be seen, lying open in a small pool of water, drowning and being surrounded by a fierce rat. A sad way to go. The funeral was lovely. We got the same shitty, expensive bus back to the capital, grabbed one of those awesome burgers (the only plus for coming back) and took a train to Zagreb. Slidy head rests. Awesome. They should bring them back in Western Europe. Onwards to Croatia and one of my two most anticipated countries.

Italy (Milan, Lake Garda, Venice)

We arrived in Milan and I convinced Cannelle that it was definitely worth visiting the city to see the cathedral before we headed to the lakes. It would be a crime to be so close and not see it, as I still believe its one of the best buildings in Europe. We walked into the centre and went up on the roof. Its still one of the few places you can walk on the roof. The building is awesome and Cannelle says it looks like its made from some sort of silken gauze material (I can't remember exactly which one it was). They were doing night concerts there and it was a shame that we would miss it because we had to be at the lakes. We were going to couchsurf and we had intended to couchsurf a lot on the holiday (In the end it never quite worked out like that). Milan is a super classy city, one of those which is probably better to live in than visit. The shopping centre is cool and the dress sense is what you would expect from a fashion capital. Cannelle though the 'underground' was a Mcdonalds due to the 'M' metro symbol and has to rank along with the classic in Valencia of 'where is the cathedral?', while we were standing on the cathedral roof :-)

Following our brief tour we went to buy tickets for the lakes. An Italian man stopped us and showed us that the machine we were about to use was not giving any change. Nice guy and very helpful of the Italians in general. Cannelle had had bad experiences in the South on a work trip and liked Italy a lot better this time. We still need to see Florence, Rome and Siena together. After his help we headed out for Cannelle's first CS experience. We met our Polish host at the station and she made us lovely parma ham with melon before taking us on an evening tour of Sirmione. I pretended I hadn't been here before as I figured it was politer. All of the Italian leg were places I had been before, but I wanted to show Cannelle Venice and I had always wanted to visit the most beautiful city in the World with a partner (so who better than my future wife). I have written 'old man with three seats' and 'pink shorts/blazer' man. I have no idea what I was writing about and its things like this, which is why I will return to the live blogging format for the Asia trip.

When we wokeup both Kasia and Davide had gone to work and we had the day to ourselves. We went to Migros (A supermarket we always went to in Switzerland when I was a kid) and bought ourselves a picnic. Being constantly ravenously hungry I had to eat early and we had breakfast while feeding the friendly/aggressive ducks. Delete as appropriate depending on your love of animals. They were certainly confident ducks. We found a mini golf. Its an important tradition as readers of this blog will know, from the original days of playing in Pennsylvania with Ollie. I believe the second post of the blog has a reference to it. There was even a weird gemini twin hole. We played it twice as we thought it was two separate holes, as oppose to two separate ones of the same to speed up game time. The weather was scorching and we were lucky for our start. We headed out to the recommended Jamaica beach to spend the afternoon. Cannelle can find the cold (well by Caribbean standards) water refreshing in the heat. I just find it cold. It could be 60 degrees outside and I still wouldn't want a cold water shower. Only the Amazon boat drop buckets come close to proving that wrong. I cut my toe out in the water as I got it stuck on the rocks. Lake Garda is a nice place to kick back and relax. The European Mediterranean summer was going to be a nice one (We didn't see much rain until we hit the Czech Rep and Poland). We found some Roman ruins but didn't want to pay to go in and we saw plenty of fat red lobster women around the beaches. There are a lot of Italian tourists around the lake. We came back and had a wonderful risotto. We then rounded out the weekend with a game of risk. I had the objective to kill Cannelle's pinks and noone could work out what I needed as I kept switching directions, but of course it depended where her men were. In the end I won by conquering the whole World as Cannelle's were the last men standing. Was fun. There was also a murder in town where a local restaurant owner (and someone they knew) shot his chef dead over some money dispute. It was treated quite calmly and I suppose is more of a normal occurence in Italy. Our hosts told us there is a lot of Sicilian influence around the lakes. Fair enough. We were happy to be communicating by using our Spanish here as everyone understood us and we understood almost everything they said. Ah the bliss compared to what was to come.

I have no idea what I have written now. In the end I paid extra for the train to Venice. Not sure why. I must have fucked up somewhere. The trains were full as people moved around the lake but cleared out for the last leg. Ah that was it. I bought a ticket to Venice central, when we were only going to the Venice mainland stop. We got to our random 4 star hotel that we had found on the mystery hotel offer on lastminute. It was really nice and a cool place to stay for our anniversary. We headed out into Venice and its still a very beautiful city. Cannelle liked it, but secretly I suspect she was expecting more. My fault for bigging it up. We walked around the back streets through the Rialto, stopping down a back alley for a famed stone baked pizza (It was superb and had been recommended to avoid tourist hotspots with mediocre food and prices that suggested delusions of grandeur). We had the sausage and wild mushroom. It was heavenly. We got lost a bit (normal), visited San Marco, found a statue with a stone penis (for Cannelle), saw some random art, climbed the tower for the beautiful views (where we met a very lovely Yankee couple we gave advice to for Barcelona) and chilled out in a park. It was crawling with tourists as it was on both my pervious visits, but its still a very unique place. I whacked my head three times on the shower here. You'd figure I would have learnt after the first time or even the second. We went to a lovely trattoria seafood restaurant that doesn't really welcome tourists, but that's part of the appeal. Its fiendishly hard to find, even with a map, but it was worth it as we had an exceptional meal and Cannelle got to continue her new love affair with fish. We didn't pay for the bus either way from the mainland to Venice and I wouldn't bother if I were you. We had a wonderful anniversary evening and could lie in the next day as we were going to cruise into Slovenia. It almost cost us, but we ended up with exceptional luck on our connections etc.

We had a wonderful buffet breakfast and ended up walking up the stairs as we were too heavy for the lift. It was a good breakfast. We took the train to the border town of Gorizia as it was the cheapest way to cross. On the train one couple had to pay extra and one woman was fined 40 euros for not stamping her ticket. The guard argued it was the same system in Holland (She was Dutch) which is not true, but I wouldn't have known either except that Cannelle is used to the system in France. I suppose they have to do it as they don't really have barriers. We got off the train and Cannelle reckoned there was a bus direct to Slovenian Gorizia. I didn't think so (there was) and we took a bus to the border. We asked the driver how to get across the border and he seemed stressed until we told him we understand Italian and he rattled off the instructions. Easy enough. Everyone in Italy was super happy and we walked across the border (It was Cannelle's first time walking a border and it wouldn't be her last). Onwards to Slovenia.

France (Bordeaux)

Woohoo. Ok the blog is back up and running now. Going to update our travels across Eastern Europe and will try to maintain a more play by play account of our South East Asian travels next year. Been a while since I got tapping on the keyboard. Good to be back.

Anyways a lot has happened since the last update. I found my soulmate and am getting married next year in London. I spent 6 months back in London, before relocating to Barcelona for 11 months of not as much bliss as we had hoped. Now I am sitting here in Paris with Shy'M on the music tv, a fading lightbulb and my own failing eyesight as the modus operandi for the blog. Anyway enough of this. Just going to make myself a quick steak burger before I sit down to this. Oh yeah I am wearing glasses now. Makes the light shine brighter from the screen.

Ok I finished. We left Barcelona under a cloud of darkness. Well not really, but we escaped without having to see the wicked witch of the west who was our landlady. I had forgotten about her until writing this blog entry brought it all back. Less said about her the better. Anyway we caught the morning train to the border. It was supposed to be a quickish trip to Bordeaux, but our first connection was horribly delayed due to a train on fire or strikes or something very French. Then our second train was stopped in Carcassone for someone who had an attck of some kind (Not sure what kind but they got stretchered off). Perhaps they were allergic to bureaucracy or delays and the TGV pushed them over the edge. At least we got two benefits from this. One was stopping right in front of Carcassone castle. After Ollie introduced us to the game it was fun to be opposite the real one. Super impressive as well. We may go and visit it next summer on a swing through the South of France. The other benefit was unlimited food delivered to the train. It was ok, but we got a lot of it. Naturally I tucked in. We also found a cool Husky dog. Eventually, about 12 hours after setting off, we arrived in Bordeaux and I waited and got abused by a French cleaner, while Cannelle went to meet her sister. We had left all our bags on the platform (8 I think) and she decided she needed to clean that part of the platform now. She wanted me to move the bags. All eight. Stupid woman. I explained that I was waiting for Cannelle, but she insisted and reported me to the station manager. Bear in mind I speak no French. He came to speak to me and I explained the situation. To his credit he let me wait there, but the old bitch was clearly unhappy and I still think she wanted to sweep through my bags. Good start. We met up with Babout, Jessica and Cyril and headed back to their flat.

The next day we went for a tour of the city. It has changed a lot from the shithole that it was in 2003 and 2000 (the last two times I was there). I finally got to see the work from all the digging up they were doing back then. I now understand why Francois liked it and I didn't. We saw it either side of the doing up period. We saw the water mirror, which is kind of like Bordeaux's beach and hung out there a bit. I was a little lost in the conversation and it was a foreshadowing of my early Paris experiences. I am somewhat out of my depth in French, but hopefully bit by bit I will get there. We went out for dinner with Cannelle's dad, which was good as I though I wasn't going to meet him before the wedding. He was sleeping in his converted Scooby Doo van and we all caught a ride back to Jessica's place. We even managed to persuade her and Cyril that they might fancy joining us for our South East Asia trip. Indeed they are coming to Paris this weekend and we can discuss it. She also owns a rabbit with pooh constantly stuck to its arse. It also goes mental in the middle of the night and had to take a berating from Babou to stop it being too mental.

In the morning we went to Cannelle's uncle's house for lunch and again I was a little bit out of it with the French. We had a nice traditional French meal. We had some home made jam back at Jessicas and tea in a bowl. It seems to be a weird French tradition to drink tea or hot chocolate from a bowl. Maybe its because none of them own mugs. Only tiny glasses. We finished up with some savoury crepes and its not as horrible as it sounds, though I can't say I love it. French food is still my favourite in the World, but a lot of the stuff they eat day to day is not really to my taste. It was a nice weekend down in Bordeaux and we considered it as a place to live if everything didn't go to plan in Paris. Luckily it has gone way better than we expected and we both have good jobs with very good salaries and we are able to take care of everything we need to do for next year. In the morning we went off to the airport and boarded our flight to Milan. The holiday was about to begin :-)

Argentina Part 3: Buenos Aires

This will be a monster post as it was just over 2 weeks that I spent there. That kind of gives away the end. This will also be the last part of the blog from the current trip, although it will be regularly update when I step abroad again.

I arrived in BA and walked to the hostel. I could not draw any money. Problems with my credit cards. Well nationwide would have to fuck me one last time or it would not be my trip. Only this time it was my fault. I rang the bank. Nobody had told me that you can only draw half of the value of your credit card in cash. Shit. I had 37 quid left. Nevermind they could extend my limit by 700 quid on the spot, giving me 350 quid more cash. Fucking unbelievable. One month ago they want to take away my overdraft and now they want to give me 700 quid more. Good to see the Janus heads of nationwide are in harmony. No wonder they had a banking crisis. I sorted that out and then found out I had to pay the hostel in cash. Crap. I needed to find somewhere I could stay on my card if I was to find work. This was becoming squeaky bum time. Could I even operate in this environment. I was going to need to live off of my card and use cash only for the essentials. I even wrote 'can I make this work?' in my book. On the plus side there were two Brazilians and a Colombian in my dorm. Excellent. Cheapest dorm in BA and you get cable tv in your room lol. Excellent. Winter olympics were on, not that I ended up watching much of it. I wrote 'Go home or work it? Maybe enough cash to live 1-2 months, 1 month to find it.' Hmm should have guessed where this was going to end. I walked the streets to an English language meeting and the radio in BA is really good. Was a fun little meet up with three English guys and three Argentine girls. One guy had even managed to live in South America for 5 years without really working. Thats impressive. His hoboness far outstrips mine. We grabbed a free drink, though the barman took a while to agree to giving me a coke. Sebastian was the other guy and we would end up hanging out a fair bit in BA.

I walked back around 6am and this would become the norm in BA. In 16 days there I went to sleep before 2am once and that was this day, a saturday of all days. I had no sleep and a bread roll breakfast because I was going to need to start to work. I applied for jobs all day and one company would require a legal visa for me to work. Shit. In summary others offered me irregular hours and crap salaries to work on the black market, others said they had to promise the Argentine government not to assist foreigners who wanted visas. I decided I should apply to Colombia as well, but I left in my cv that said I was applying in BA (my attention to detail is shocking lol) and they got pissy with me. Oh well I killed that route stone dead at birth. I abandoned the days search and went off to meet a ballerina and her friends for a tour of BA. We went to Recoleta cemetary and then to the touristy end of La Boca. Its been scrubbed up and painted for the tourists and did not look too rough. Of course at this point I did not know I had been taken to the sanitised end of the barrio. It smelt of dead fish though. The Belgian girl brought up the topic of the Falklands. Cheers for that. Neither me nor the Argentine really wanted to talk about it much and in the end I was too tired to join this Colombian girl in the evening.

The next day was sunday so I took some rest and went to join another Colombian girl for Chinese new year. She was a really cool girl. I had missed the Colombian relaxedness that the Argentines often replace with histerica. Me and her friend went and saw the dragons dance. I think its a little less big there than in London's Chinatown. We had parilla in San Telmo and I was slowly getting used to BA's barrios. The places where the tourists stay are a little too gimmicky or clean for me, which is becoming a trend. I am really drifting towards the more real and edgy barrios of cities. Not that BA has any barrios that are edgy. San Telmo is a cool Boho neighbourhood to wander around in though and we saw some tango in the streets. I found Corrientes which is the Broadway of BA. Then I returned to San Telmo to meet Karina and a big group of random people. There was an Estonian guy who said I should join him for tango but we never managed to meet up. They were drinking in the streets and eventually we found a Brazilian samba band and shuffled samba behind them into a larger street where everyone was shooting each other with foam for carnival. Was quite the gun fight while I tried in vain to protect my choripan from foam. I was getting lots of offers of help finding work and everyone was failing to deliver lol. Its like those sliding, half meant promises. Damn they annoy me. If I say I will do something, I do it regardless of if I want to, if I am ill or if I am almost dead. Its imperative you keep your word. I was spending too fast and really should be moving hostels but I decided to stay there a couple more nights.

I spent another 6 hours looking for work. By this point I think I had applied to every school there and was becoming increasingly disillusioned. Some companies would employ me if I had a Temporary Residents Permit but I don't think that was going to be easy to get (Will make sure I get one when I go back though). At this point I was concluding it may be easier to regroup at home. Or even take a bus north and visit a few places before flying back from Colombia or Venezuela etc. Or even see Paraguay, Iguazu and Uruguay. Shit system. Helen told me I should just enjoy BA and come home if I have to, because I was not enjoying it while I was stressing over work all the time. I went to La Bomba that evening. Its a really cool drumming show though I am sure the hostel people ripped us off on tickets. There is no space to dance, which is a shame as the music has a really good tribal rhythm and makes you want to move. While we were in there the heavens opened up. Monster rain in 2 hours. The water was above my knee height and you almost had to swim across the streets, littered with rivers of garbage due to the bottom of the bins being punched out. I asked for a little plastic bag to put my passport and bank cards in and then set off wading through the streets. I have never seen anything like it in any major city ever. Laly cancelled on me due to the rain and it was the second time we had failed to meet up. Oh the ironies of fate. I wonder if I would have booked my ticket on the tuesday if I had met her on the monday night. Well the best of things you have to work for and don't always get to follow the easiest route.

I got up on the tuesday and gave up on job hunting. I went back down to Recoleta cemetery to look around. Did not find Evita's grave but did not really care. Found Sarmientos. Was interesting. I once wrote an essay on him, but can't remember what about or even anything about him. He did not have the same lasting influence on me that Jose Marti did. The museum was open late so I took a wander through the grass of the sculture garden. Hmm lots of cobwebs. Ah dammit its fucking grass mosquitoes like in Paramaraibo. I hate those bastards. They don't leave you alone. The MALBA was shut. Dammit. So I went to the Japanese gardens which were nice and the rose gardens which was also a nice place and free. I came back and went round the Museo Bellas Artes. Was cool, though the modern stuff was better than the historical stuff (not usual for me to say that). I was really beginning to enjoy BA and the pressure had come off. I decided to book a flight home via Rome and was sorted. Now I had 12 days to enjoy the city. I had figured I would come back the next year and stay in BA for 3 months, Rio or Sao Paolo 3 months, Caracas 3 months, Cali 3 months and travel in between them for 6 months. Sounded like a great plan and one that was sustainable financially. That may now have changed as I am thinking strongly that I may end up in BA for at least 10 months-1 year and then travel with Laly in Brazil. Anyway I am jumping ahead of myself. Patience is not my virtue. Man City drew which was good for us. I went to Sebastian's flat for dinner in the evening and it was total open plan with a drop pool swimming pool in the hall. Words don't do that place justice. Its superb. I would love to rent it but thats only realistic if the pound starts taking steroids and recovers against the dollar. Stayed for a bit and then went to meet Laly. We were due to meet at Plaza Serrano and I got accosted at first by a tramp. He wanted me to give him money and afterwards to drink a beer. He was shocked that I spoke Spanish and did not drink beer. Must be odd for an Englishman. Anyway he dropped his money on the floor and lost a peso. I was helping him look when Laly arrived and as I always look like a hobo, she probably assumed I was just an other tramp. We headed out to a bar and stayed there, eating pizza until around 4am. Seems funny writing about something when you know where it goes. Its odd how the most innocuous things at the time take on great significance due to the events that follow from them. Every small trickle of fate helps to steer us on a course into unknown territories. One small event or night can change a lifetime or destiny and the smallest things are often cruelly overlooked at times. Now imagine if we had met the night before. Some rain changes the night, but would I have booked my flight? I could well be in London and not Buenos Aires purely due to rain. At least its a typically English thing that played the fateful role. Also it does not seem fitting to discuss my relationship with Laly in the ontext of a timeline and I am also not sure I can do it justice with words. I think I will just describe the night and then I will give it a go in a short an sweet paragraph. I can't sum up all the conversation. Would need the same time back to describe it. We ended up going down to the rose gardens, where we were eaten by mosquitoes, joined by some random hobo dog, observed some strange old men running and walking around in circles, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. We talked about stealing heads, the relationship of the sun and moon and many other non topics, where saying stupid things illuminates clever minds. I love mind games and I love creating random worlds and private universes. Firstly it is good mental exercise, secondly it if funny and thirdly it bonds you to that person faster. We kissed though Argentines are still terrible at reading symbols and responding. They assume lack of movement signifies interest, whereas us Europeans need some positive and proactive response. We also got stalked by some random museum worker. What was he doing working at 5am.

Hmm ok the paragraph that tests my writing skills. Often with people you can have a connection that is mental, emotional or physical. It is rare that you have all three, rare that it is so good to start with and rarer still that it gets better and better everytime you are with them. With Laly it is that good and it just gets better and better every moment of time we spend together. So it is shit that it is on pause right now. I hate the Atlantic. With her its just very effortless. Everything is easy. We click so well and harmonise on everything. The body chemistry is superb, but so is the mental chemistry as we can talk for hours and time melts away, which would be good in the long term, but sucks short term when you don't have many hours to spend together. Its that obliviousness to external factors that means we got bollocked in Tigre everywhere we went. A lack of willpower to depart, a general killing of time doing nothing. Together we never do anything and yet that time is everything. One of life's ironies. I prefer to write stream of consciousness as its more honest and there is less time for censorship. We decided we wanted to move in together after less than 24 hours. As so often with us what sounds insane just feels right. I think I could go nuts back in London and possibly for the first time in my life I am not that concerned about protecting my freedom. I always said there would be things worth sacrificing freedom for, but you don't come across them often. Right now I miss the intensity, I miss the conversation and I really miss the time doing nothing. I really want her to come to London and hope that she can. Ack it sucks. For now I have nothing more to say. My words are not good enough for it.

The next day I slept all day long as I was dead. I went to play 5 a side football in the evening and we got cained and I played shit. Mind you our team was total crap and I felt like I was Iker Casillas again.

I was now going home in 10 days. I found a hotel to stay in for that night but I needed to find somewhere that accepted credit card as a matter of urgency and eventually I found a shitty hostel for 8 nights. It was fucking horrible with no sheets and 800 insects in the bathroom. I would not recommend it to anyone. I was beginning to really love the city. I know knew I could live there for some time. I tried to find some plays for the saturday night out with Sebastian. Then I went for a walk around La Boca. Dangerous my arse. There are way too many middle class people travelling. La Boca was about as dangerous as Brixton and less so than Hackney or even Turnpike Lane where I have lived and never had any problems. There need to be more travellers from less cookie cutter backgrounds to have some perspective. Hmm they have themed sex hotels in Buenos Aires that look fun to try though we never really got round to it. I spent all say trying to find a blues bar so I could show the music to Laly. Ah I should send her some blues songs to see the style now. At least there are two in London for when she comes in July. They played 'rat in my kitchen' on the radio. Fucking awesome. That is now officially the best radio station ever and it was going out of business the day after I left BA. Timing. Laly was late (not unusual lol) and we ended up in a shitty jazz bar in San Telmo. Afterwards she came and stayed with me and we failed to sleep for the second night. We will probably kill each other from lack of sleep when she comes here. It was our second night together and we were planning London, Edinburgh, Devon, getting Polish passports, living in Argentina and a whole raft of things. I have a feeling this could be a whirlwind in the end.

We had breakfast in a bakery and then she had to go to study. She had an exam the day after I left and I think its partially my fault she did not pass the Spanish bit, although she was thinking of staying in the public university now. Yet another person failed to meet me at the obelisk. It was becoming a symbol of failure. Then I slept through the afternoon for a few hours. Then I grabbed dinner in burger king and the guy working there is possibly the most incompetent person I have ever seen. He fucked up every order and I mean every one. I just accepted my wrong burger as by that point I felt really sorry for him. Then I took the subte. Its shit. Its the shittest subway system I have seen in South America, but its better than Bogota's transmilenio which sucks. An internet place could not break my 100 and a bar would not break it so I got a free coke. Excellent. You should just travel around BA with a 100 peso note if you don't want to pay for anything as noone can ever break the thing. I met Aussie Ben and Monica from Manizales for drinks. Hadn't seen either of them for 11 months. Laly could not make it. I stayed for a while and then left. Monica wanted me to go clubbing with her and decided I was lame when I declined.

I moved hostels and then met Sebastian. Taxis are expensive. I hate them. We decided to watch Agosto, which was a recommendation of a histerica Argentine girl from the night before. I had a Mexican lunch with Sebastian and then met a girl briefly for a coffee. We had kept missing each other and this time only had half an hour as I had to meet Sebastian for dinner and then head to the theatre. Play was really good though I did not understand all of it. Afterwards we headed to Palermo where I had said to Sebastian we could go and 'Pass la pirata' but as I was now de facto attached I told him I would come to the bars but I was not interested in meeting anyone. Palermo has attractive people, but its a little zona rosa style plastic fantastic. Wehung out there until around 3am and then I walked home.

I was knackered the next day as the hostel bed was total shite. I met Laly while half dead and we had some media lunas on the way to Tigre. We spent another classically quality afternoon doing nothing lol. We carried on planning july and january and then got bollocked by everyone in the town. We got heckled for sitting on a wall inappropriately, for kissing in an internet cafe, by a pharmacist woman for asking for protection (Laly did not want to ask and I don't have smooth enough Spanish, so it was quite direct) and a policeman and ice cream woman tried to send us to a sex hotel. We ended up getting eaten by a few mosquitoes on the river bank and then a dog climbed all over us, seemingly trying to hump one or both of us. Spurs won, Villa won and Man City and Liverpool drew. We spent time wandering around the town and eventually found a nice hotel but we never got to use the swimming pool. This was the first time together we actually slept at all as well for about 4/5hours. I can't honestly say after 2 days and a night up in Tigre that I really know what the town looks like at all.

We left the hotel around midday and decided we would maybe visit Paris lol. Then we eventually took the catamaran tour. It absolutely opened fire from the heavens like the day we had failed to meet. Everyone on the boat was hiding. We got drenched but I sat wind side to take most of it on my back. Still we got drenched and saw parts of the canal. The photo on my wall is just before it battered down. We should have had a before and after. Laly is very fashionista and I am a tramp, so muddy arses and wet clothes are more normal for me. Seriously though, it does not matter how many times we are drenched, scolded or bitten the time is still good. BA flooded again. We eventually made it back to the town and fed a blind dog some lasagna. Have to find crazy dogs in London as they seem to follow us everywhere. There wasa French beardy man as well. Laly had to go back for classes and I just went to watch Invictus in the evening. Was a good film, but nothing special. It has got me to start reading Mandela's biography though, which is good so far.

I slept a long time into the afternoon and then finally met Agus to go for dinner. Was quite amusing. We have been friends online for 4 years and when I get to BA she is not there but on holiday and eventually we finally get to meet. We went out for dinner and it was a nice night, although we had the famous parilla and I can see why offal was banned in 1986. Its fucking horrible. I prefer the choripan to the beef we often got. Very chewy stuff in some places.

I spent all of this day applying for jobs in the UK. Change of tack. Ended up with lots of offers and have too many interviews. I am starting work with St Giles on monday and then can start to slowly add more hours and more jobs as I feel comfortable doing so. I met Sebastian and the Aussie girl at his flat and they cooked dinner. Laly was a little late coming over, but that's standard in BA lol. We had a veggie dinner and then went out to get some ice cream. After a few bars, Laly and I went to the ghost playground which is kind of freaky and near the Japanese gardens. We got bitten loads again. I got attacked so much in that week, but we had fun down in the park and then got breakfast before she needed some more time to study.

I got up at 5pm. My sleep pattern was really all over the place at this point and it was thursday of my last week. I met Agus again and we ate before seeing 1001 Nights which was a decent enough musical. We had dinner afterwards and then I went home to drop dead as I had had my third night with Laly without sleeping. It was almost as if neither of us wanted to lose any of the time we could spend together, as well as it never being dull, never an awkward pause or with my talking any pause lol.

The next day I woke up and went to see Peter. He had made it all the way here and this was the last time I would see him on this trip and the first time since Cuenca, so naturally I apologised first. We met at the obelisk and walked around all night before Laly joined us an hour late lol. We went to a square in San Telmo, got accosted by a drunken Colombian and then Laly stayed with me. I had gone to the MALBA as well, but they had the Andy Warhol exhibition on and would not take card payment. Fuckers.

My last day I got up and met Peter having not slept at all on friday night. I was struggling a bit. We fixed all the logistic stuff and then took the suburban train out to the Jesus theme park. I figured it was a fitting end to the trip. Its not actually that great, but it was cool to travel on trains again. They have a giant jesus who pops out of the rock and moves a bit, a nativity where only one wise man and a sheep moves and a last supper with a freaky jesus moving like he wants to create a Chun Li fireball. The creation is quite cool though, with the green laser shows and the Arabic dancing was probably the highlight of the place. Peter even made us move for a better view lol. Afterwards we headed back past a memorial to the lost people of the dictatorship and with a view of the River Plate at last. I met Laly, a Romanian girl and Sebastian and we went to San Telmo for dinner and drinks. I said goodbye to everyone and will no doubt see them again, while Laly came and stayed with me. It and somewhat sad last night and we did not have our usual sleep deprivation as we were both knackered (me especially being an old man). In the morning we got up and took the bus to the aiport and we annoyed some more people in Mcdonalds before I had to take a plane back to the UK. The end of an odyssey. Trip of a lifetime people say. Hmm. Nope. The first of many Ilike to say and now I have 10 months to save to get back down there. I did manage to see District 9 on the way back.

Now I just need to enjoy my city, get cracking on working, save money, pay back the banks, save more money to cross the Atlantic and head back to BA. Meanwhile we need to think of a way to get Gatita over here and past Gordon Browns crap rules.

Top 10: Peru, Bolivia and Chile

Like Colombia dominated the north, Chile will dominate the west.

1. Valdivia (Chile): Absolutely picturesque little town. Botanic gardens, parks, every house with flowers, university town, multicoloured buildings and sea lions in the river. How can you not like the place.

2. Santiago (Chile): Will be a weird one for most people. Even the people who live there don't like it. Not sure why. Funky multicoloured barrios, great food, looks like London in parts and the only city in these three countries with a top class cultural scene.

3. Pucon (Chile): Picture perfect adventure town. Lifted straight out of the Rockies and build from Swiss Alp instruction manuals, this town is fun and pretty.

4: Iquique (Chile): Beach resort in the north. You know its a good resort if it can make my list. Buzzing in the summer, paraglide off the cliffs or wile away a day in the superb UNESCO ghost town of Humberstone

5. Arequipa (Peru): Best town in Peru comfortably. Very nice architecture, most intelligent and best looking Peruvians.

6. Sucre (Bolivia): I really like this colonial town. Very pretty and coolly laid out colonial town.

7. Lima (Peru): Another big city that gets battered a lot, but its got a pretty centre, a cool area overlooking the Pacific and a good clubbing scene.

8. Santa Cruz (Bolivia): Like a wild west town and so different to the rest of Bolivia

9. San Pedro de Atacama (Chile): Awesome desert oasis. Yeah its touristy but its still cool

10. Iquitos (Peru): Its a bit shit but I had the best breakfast I have ever had there in the Yellow Rose of Texas

And no space for Valparaiso (too close to Santiago but nice enough), La Paz (Was not that impressed with this ramshackle mess, but maybe because I don't use cocaine) and Cuzco (What a shitheap full of gringos and passport hunting bitches. Pretty though). Of course the best place in these countries is Torres del Paine but Puerto Natales is a bit crap.